magistrates, they were not thrown into the town jails, they were not hunted from place to place with bows and bills and mounted musketeers. They gave offence to none, and were respected by all. "Such was their singleheartedness and sincere affection one towards another," says their historian and magistrate, "that they came as near the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other church of these later times has done, according to their rank and quality."

Here certainly were English Puritans more competent than any men else in the world to judge if it were a slander upon the English government to identify them with Dutch Puritans. Did they sympathize with the party in Holland which the King, who had so scourged and trampled upon themselves in England, was so anxious to crush, the hated Arminians? Did they abhor the Contra-Remonstrants whom James and his ambassador Carleton doted upon and whom Barneveld called "Double Puritans" and "Flanderizers?"

Their pastor may answer for himself and his brethren.

"We profess before God and men," said Robinson in his Apologia, "that we agree so entirely with the Reformed Dutch Churches in the matter of religion as to be ready to subscribe to all and each of their articles exactly as they are set forth in the Netherland Confession. We acknowledge those Reformed Churches as true and genuine, we profess and cultivate communion with them as much as in us lies. Those of us who understand the Dutch language attend public worship under their pastors. We administer the Holy Supper to such of their members as, known to us, appear at our meetings." This was the position of the Puritans. Absolute, unqualified accordance with the Contra-Remonstrants.

As the controversy grew hot in the university between the Arminians and their adversaries, Mr. Robinson, in the language of his friend Bradford, became "terrible to the Arminians . . . . who so greatly molested the whole state and that city in particular."

When Episcopius, the Arminian professor of theology, set forth sundry theses, challenging all the world to the onset, it was thought that "none was fitter to buckle with them" than Robinson. The orthodox professor Polyander so importuned the English Puritan to enter the lists on behalf of the Contra-Remonstrants that at last he consented and overthrew the challenger, horse and man, in three successive encounters. Such at least was the account given by his friend and admirer the historian. "The Lord did so help him to defend the truth and foil this adversary as he put him to an apparent nonplus in this great and public audience. And the like he did a second or third time upon such like occasions," said Bradford, adding that, if it had not been for fear of offending the English government, the university would have bestowed preferments and honours upon the champion.

We are concerned with this ancient and exhausted controversy only for the intense light it threw, when burning, on the history which occupies us.

Of the extinct volcano itself which once caused such devastation, and in which a great commonwealth was well-nigh swallowed up, little is left but slag and cinders. The past was made black and barren with them. Let us disturb them as little as possible.

The little English congregation remained at Leyden till toward the end of the Truce, thriving, orderly, respected, happy. They were witnesses to the tumultuous, disastrous, and tragical events which darkened the Republic in those later years, themselves unobserved and unmolested. Not a syllable seems to remain on record of the views or emotions which may have been excited by those scenes in their minds, nor is there a trace left on the national records of the Netherlands of their protracted residence on the soil.

They got their living as best they might by weaving, printing, spinning, and other humble trades; they borrowed money on mortgages, they built houses, they made wills, and such births, deaths, and marriages as occurred among them were registered by the town-clerk.

And at last for a variety of reasons they resolved to leave the Netherlands. Perhaps the solution of the problem between Church and State in that country by the temporary subjection of State to Church may have encouraged them to realize a more complete theocracy, if a sphere of action could be found where the experiment might be tried without a severe battle against time-hallowed institutions and vested rights. Perhaps they were appalled by the excesses into which men of their own religious sentiments had been carried by theological and political passion. At any rate depart they would; the larger half of the congregation remaining behind however till the pioneers should have broken the way, and in their own language "laid the stepping-stones."

They had thought of the lands beneath the Equator, Raleigh having recently excited enthusiasm by his poetical descriptions of Guiana. But the tropical scheme was soon abandoned. They had opened negotiations with the Stadholder and the States-General through Amsterdam merchants in regard to settling in New Amsterdam, and offered to colonize that country if assured of the protection of the United Provinces. Their petition had been rejected. They had then turned their faces to their old master and their own country, applying to the Virginia Company for a land-patent, which they were only too happy to promise, and to the King for liberty of religion in the wilderness confirmed under his broad seal, which his Majesty of course refused. It was hinted however that James would connive at them and not molest them if they carried themselves peaceably. So they resolved to go without the seal, for, said their magistrate very wisely, "if there should be a purpose or desire to wrong them, a seal would not serve their turn though it were as broad as the house-floor."

Before they left Leyden, their pastor preached to them a farewell sermon, which for loftiness of spirit and breadth of vision has hardly a parallel in that age of intolerance. He laid down the principle that criticism of the Scriptures had not been exhausted merely because it had been begun; that the human conscience was of too subtle a nature to be imprisoned for ever in formulas however ingeniously devised; that the religious reformation begun a century ago was not completed; and that the Creator had not necessarily concluded all His revelations to mankind.

The words have long been familiar to students of history, but they can hardly be too often laid to heart.

Noble words, worthy to have been inscribed over the altar of the first church to be erected by the departing brethren, words to bear fruit after centuries should go by. Had not the deeply injured and misunderstood Grotius already said, "If the trees we plant do not shade us, they will yet serve for our descendants?"

Yet it is passing strange that the preacher of that sermon should be the recent champion of the Contra-Remonstrants in the great controversy; the man who had made himself so terrible to the pupils of the gentle and tolerant Arminius.

And thus half of that English congregation went down to Delftshaven, attended by the other half who were to follow at a later period with their beloved pastor. There was a pathetic leave-taking. Even many of the Hollanders, mere casual spectators, were in tears.

Robinson, kneeling on the deck of the little vessel, offered a prayer and a farewell. Who could dream that this departure of an almost nameless band of emigrants to the wilderness was an epoch in the world's history? Yet these were the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, the founders of what was to be the mightiest republic of modern history, mighty and stable because it had been founded upon an idea.

They were not in search of material comfort and